London Evening Standard, July 1972
A couple of weeks ago the gynaecologist suggested that my wife go into hospital a few days early to have her baby induced, as her ankles were beginning to swell and she was losing weight. Great, she thought. No more messing about waiting. Another couple of days and it’ll be all over.
So dutifully at 10 o’clock the next morning I drove her over to the hospital, and left her in the capable hands of those who most enjoy such messy moments in life.
“Come back at two o’clock,” they told me.
So at two o’clock back I was at the reception desk asking, as instructed, for Mrs Connolly. On the first floor, she was, sir. Just up the steps.
On reaching the first floor I found I was in the labour ward. “What do you want?” a student doctor asked me.
“My wife,” I said. “Mrs Connolly.”
“Oh, that’ll be her in the delivery room now,” he said, pointing towards a door.
My God, I thought, they’re quick here. We’ll have to come here more often. There wasn’t a sign that the baby was on the way when I left her this morning.
“The baby should be born within ten minutes to half an hour,” went on the student. “Do you want to watch?”
Oh no, I said quickly. I’ll wait out here. I was hardly the best person to have around in a crisis, and Plum wouldn’t thank me for being there. She’d be much better off by herself. She’d had our first two children without me being present. Why start now?
“She’s not making much noise, is she?” I said surprised at the tranquillity of the ward.
“No. She’s being very good,” the young doctor answered. “No trouble at all.”
That’s my Plum, I thought. Valiant and courageous. No whimperer she.
So I sat down and waited by the door, and watched the nurses darting in and out of the delivery room, white gauze over their noses and mouths, and all busily ignoring me.
Now and again someone would come and take a quick peer through the peep-hole in the door to see how things were progressing, before going back to other jobs. And indeed so matter of fact did the whole situation begin to appear that gradually curiosity began to get the better of me. After all, if Plum wasn’t making any noise, and everything was going very well, maybe it would be nice to see my child born.
So, finally, much to the satisfaction of a student nurse, I looked through the peep-hole. Inside everything was busy industry as doctors and nurses and student doctors and nurses observed the birth. From my position all I could see was an entire length of legs, being held in position by the scrimmage of people while the doctor did his work and a sister repeated constantly: “Push, dear. Push. That’s better. Push.”
It really was all rather fascinating, watching for one’s child to pop out … and so far there wasn’t any mess at all.
“Why don’t you go in?” The student nurse was now smiling at me in the way that nurses are traditionally supposed to smile at fathers-to-be.
“Oh no. I’m fine. I’ll watch from here.”
But I was already beginning to waver. Maybe Plum would like to see me after all, and it was a bit frustrating not being able to see her face or her expression.
Then just as I was about to ask for a white coat and gauze mask an older nurse appeared from the delivery room. Behind her I could see the long legs bent slightly over and held encouragingly by the attendant nurses.
Plum always did have pretty good legs, I thought…
“It’s all right if this gentleman goes in to see his wife, isn’t it?” the student nurse asked, and I steeled myself for the occasion.
For a second the other nurse looked puzzled. “But the husband’s already in there,” she said.
There was a long pause and all eyes turned on me. I looked back at the long legs on the delivery table.
“Isn’t that Mrs Connolly?”
“No. It’s Mrs Elliott.”
Suddenly I felt like a Peeping Tom. Unknowingly I’d been watching another man’s wife in a situation of some intimacy.
“I think you’d better come along with me,” said the student nurse, and hurried my prying little eyes away from the peep-hole. Like a voyeur caught in some extraordinary fetish I scurried meekly after her.
Two stories down in the ante-natal ward I found Plum, lying in a bed reading Cosmopolitan and eating grapes.
“You’re late,” she said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Watching you have the baby,” I said. And pinched a grape.
FOOTNOTE: Four days later exactly the right baby, Kieron Connolly, arrived. Again I was in the labour ward, but this time I didn’t dare look through the peep-hole. After all, you never know what you’re going to see … or who …
